Formerly known as Out of the Gutter, The Fall River improv comedy troupe will headline a special all-ages holiday show in the Nagle Auditorium at BMC Durfee High School Dec. 15 at 7 p.m.

The Portuguese Kids — Derrick DeMelo, Jason Casimiro, Brian Martins and Al Sardinha — have Portuguese communities from SouthCoast to South Africa, Canada to France, laughing at their skits about growing up Portuguese.

Even if you didn't "grow up Portuguese," just being from Fall River, you'll get a kick out of these guys.

To get a sense of their style, visit their website and watch "Portuguese Siri" and "Sh** Portuguese People Say," the latter of which has 800,000 hits on YouTube. "Portuguese and I Know It," a parody of "Sexy and I Know It," just passed 1 million hits on YouTube.

Warning: You will laugh out loud. These clips are seriously funny.

The four friends grew up together in Fall River, always "goofing off" and making each other laugh, Martins said. Casimiro graduated from Bristol County Agricultural High School, DeMelo and Sardinha graduated from Durfee in 1997, and Martins graduated from Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School in 1998.

They started doing improv together in 1997 after Ricardo Rebelo, a Communications instructor at Bristol Community College and longtime staffer at Fall River Community Television, asked DeMelo and Sardinha, then BCC students, to do a local radio show. The four of them ended up doing a public access TV show, Martins said.

"Our whole show was done in the BCC parking lot and it was not good," Martins said.

"We were God-awful," DeMelo said with a laugh.

So the group signed up for comedy classes at the Improv Asylum in Boston, and later trained with Upright Citizens Brigade, which has an alumni list that reads like a veritable Who's Who of Comedy: Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Zach Galifianakis, Sarah Silverman, Nick Kroll, Rob Corddry, Jack McBrayer, Tim Meadows and Donald Glover, among dozens of others.

"Upright is like the minor leagues for SNL (Saturday Night Live). We drove up there every Sunday. Our teacher was a writer for Conan O'Brien," Martins said. "It was just the perfect opportunity."

DeMelo said, "It was crazy. There are heavy hitters there. We do short-form improv, which is considered kitchy, hokey. They do long-form, which is more high-end. We wanted to learn both, but we found we like short-form better — more like 'Whose Line is it Anyway?' where the lines come out faster, and we maintain the steady laughs."

In 2004, they formed Out of the Gutter, doing general, SNL-type improv sketches, Martins said."We had one or two Portuguese sketches, and those got a really good response — much better than the other stuff," he said.

So in 2006, the four friends — all of whom had parents born in the Azores — decided to shift their focus on to Portuguese humor. And Portuguese communities everywhere are lapping it up like vovo's kale soup.

On their website, they have dozens of audio clips of songs or taped bits: "The Portuguese Christmas Song" is a parody of Adam Sandler's Christmas song. Their "drive thru" bits are especially popular — Epa! Hello, McDonalds! Pick up the phone, please! You takin' a nap there, buddy?"

One thing they're sure to get across: they're not making fun of Portuguese people. They joke with love.

Martins blogged: "We are proud to be Portuguese, we love being Portuguese, and our mission is simple: To show you the 'Funnier Side of Growing up Portuguese."

Another blog post reads:

"'Ay! Next time you cut through my yard, you go around!' You have all heard this before. In some way or another, your parents have uttered a phrase close to that one. 'Close the lights,' 'Turn off the window,' 'I tie my dogs loose on you.' It's so funny and so innocent all at once. We grew up with this, embarrassed in front of our friends or poking fun at our parents under our breath. ... But in the end, you have to give our parents credit. English is not an easy language to learn. ... They're trying their best, and we love them for it!"

Martins said, "Growing up, we've all gone through these crazy wacky episodes. These are situations we can all relate to. Their parents are silly about their daughter staying out late, or about them saving money. People come up and say, 'This reminds me of my father' or 'My mother did that when I was younger.' People leave messages on Facebook. ... It's really amazing."

In 2013, The Portuguese Kids plan to travel the globe for their "Portuguese and I Know It" tour — to Bermuda, Australia and Johannesburg, South Africa.

"It blows my mind. We get e-mails from people all over the world asking us to come perform," said DeMelo. "We go to clubs in Canada and there's extra security in case the crowd gets insane. It's surreal. It's like, 'Who are we?' We're just a couple of guys from Fall River."

The Durfee show will also showcase local singer Jordan Paiva, a performance by Artistic Dance Company and other holiday performances. Tickets to last year's show sold out quickly. Tickets are available for $5 each by visiting www.portuguesecomedy.com/tickets or by calling Durfee at (508) 675-8100, ext. 1173. All proceeds from the event benefit Durfee Student Government events.